LECTURE NOTE

GES 101.1 – COMMUNICATION IN ENGLISH 1

By Osogu, Simeon Nwabueze

TOPIC: LANGUAGE SKILLS

Language is a system that connects thoughts, which cannot be heard, seen, or touched
with sounds, letters, manual signs, or tactile symbols. In this way, one person’s private
ideas may be communicated to another person.

Language permits its users to pay attention to things, persons and events, even
when the things and persons are absent and the events are not taking place.
Language gives definition to our memories and, by translating experiences into
symbols, converts the immediacy of craving or abhorrence, or hatred or love,
into fixed principles of feeling and conduct –Aldous Huxley

The four necessities in language or commonly known as the four skills –listening,
speaking, reading and writing play a vital role in any language learning quest. As a
student, the skills of language will make you academically sound. To the extent, your
command over a language and even more the level of your English can determine
your life.

Language is essentially a skill. It is a content-based subject like Science, Social

Science, Commerce, Mathematics, etc., which aim to impart information and fill the
human mind with knowledge. Since language is a skill, it naturally come under
psychomotor domain. A skill may be understood as the ability to do something, for
instance: swimming, playing, etc, where people perform after acquiring them, but
these are different from language skills. Language skills are communication skills
that help you to convey your ideas with clarity and precision.

Language skills academically help to:

 understand and make the most effective use of your study materials;
 develop the specialized language and vocabulary relevant to your discipline;
 interpret assignment questions and select and appropriate material for your
response;
  write a well-structured and coherently presented assignment without
plagiarism;
 communicate your needs to your lecturers and work productively with other
students; make you academically sound and improve job opportunities.

Note that the four skills never stand out as individual areas, but they form a chain
cycle. Where you break one ring of the chain, the whole chain would collapse. See the
diagram below:

Fig. 1:
Listening

Language Skills

Writing Speaking

Reading

So, when you communicate as a human being, you use language in communication.
When a child is born, as he grows, he begins to develop the skills in order of LSRW:
from listening to speaking, then from reading to writing.
 Classifications of Language Skills
The four language skills can be classified thus:
Fig. 2
Language skills

Productive Skills Receptive Skills

(Active Skills) (Passive Skills)

Speaking Writing Listening Reading

Speaking and writing are productive skills because the learner/user is not only active
when using them (Speaking and writing), but also produces sounds in speaking and
symbols or graphics in writing. On the other hand, Listening and Reading are
considered receptive skills because here, the learner/user is generally passive and
receives information either through listening or reading.

However, the first two language skills (listening and speaking) form the Aural-Oral
skills, while the second two (reading and writing) form the Graphic-Motor skills.

Fig. 3
Language
Skills

Aural-Oral
Graphic-Motor
Skills
Skills

Listening Speaking Reading Writing

The diagrams in Fig. 2 and Fig. 3 are summarized in the table below. N/B: Read
vertically and horizontally

Language Skills Oral Written

Productive Speaking Writing
Receptive Listening Reading

Note that, listening and reading are input, while speaking and writing are output.

Listening Skill
Listening skill is the oldest form of the four language skills acquired by man.
Listening involves the ability to imbibe, understand and interpret a speaker’s message.
It is a state of receptivity that permits understanding of what is heard and grants the
listener full partnership in the communication process. It is an active process of
paying attention to and trying to understand the utterances of the speaker and then,
interpret it, thus, listening must be critical and responsive. Listening is different from
hearing. While listening is psychological, hearing is physiological. While listening is
active, hearing is passive. Listening is cognitive (intellectual) act. In order words, it
requires the cognitive ability to interpret the sounds one hears correctly.

Types of Listening
Different situation requires different types of listening we may listen to obtain
information, to improve relationship, to gain appreciation, to make discrimination or
to engage in a critical evaluation.

1. Informative Listening
Informative listening is a situation where the listener’s primary concern is to
understand the message of the speaker. A listener is successful when the meaning
he/she assigns to message is as the same to that which the speaker means/has in mind.
Informative listening/listening to understand is found in all areas of lives. Most of our
learning comes from informative listening. What we learn depends on how well we
listen. Students’ performance in a/n test/examination depends on how well they listen
to their lectures. Even in workplace, we listen to understand new practices or
procedures. So, good performance depends on good listening skill. We listen to
instructions, briefings, reports and speeches. If we listen poorly in any situation, we
will not be equipped with the information we need. So, to achieve this, we need to
improve our vocabulary concentration and our memory concept or idea.

2. Relationship Listening
This is the type of listening skill which its purpose is to help an individual improve
his/her relationship among people. The individual listens attentively to friends or
acquaintances in order to understand them in their friendly interactions. Three
behaviours are required for effective relationship listening.
a. Attending: This involves paying attention or focusing on the speaker.
b. Supporting: This involves being willing to give others the time they need to
express themselves adequately.
c. Empathizing: This involves feeling and thinking with the speaker. A caring
empathic listener is able to go into the world of the speaker, see as the speaker
sees; hear or feel as the speaker hears of feels.

Empathic behaviour when listened is crucial to protective relationship listening.

3. Appreciative Listening
This is the type of listening that includes listening to music for enjoyment; to speakers
because you like their style, to your choices in Cinema, in television, radio or film. It
is the response of the listener that defines appreciative listening, not the source of the
message. This is because that which provides appreciative listening for one person
may provide something else for another. For instance, rock music, reggae music or
gospel music can provide appreciative listening for some.

4. Critical Listening
In Critical listening, we make judgments about what the other person is saying. We
seek to assess the truth of what is being said. We also judge what they say against our
values, assessing them as good or bad, worthy or unworthy. Critical listening is
particularly pertinent when the other person is trying to persuade us, perhaps to
change our behavior and maybe even to change our beliefs. Within this, we also
discriminate between subtleties of language and comprehend the inner meaning of
what is said. Typically also we weigh up the pros and cons of an argument,
determining whether it makes sense logically as well as whether it is helpful to us. In
Critical Listening, we talk of expertise and trustworthiness. For instance, if a person
making argument is credible, that will add strength to the argument and a listener will
pay more attention; if the person is thought to be untrustworthy, people listening
would be less likely to believe him/her and pay less attention regardless of how strong
the argument may be. To evaluate the speaker making the argument, the listener
would ask: does the speaker know what he is saying? Is he reasonable?

5. Discriminative Listening
This is the most important and basic of all the other four of listening. It is when the
listener interprets and assigns meaning to sound rather than in words. In
discriminative listening, an informative listener can interpret the differences and
nuances of sounds and body language. Discriminative listener is sensitive to changes
in the speaker’s rate, volume, force, pitch and emphasis. We learn to discriminate
between sounds within our own language early, and later are unable to discriminate
between the phonemes of other languages. This is one reason why a person from one
country finds it difficult to speak another language perfectly as they would be unable
to distinguish the subtle sounds that are required in that language.
Finally, sensitivity to pauses and other vocal and non-vocal cues allow critical
listeners to judge more accurately not only the speaker’s message but his intentions as
well.

SPEAKING SKILLS
Speaking skill is a language skill that enables a person to orally express his ideas
accurately and coherently anytime and in any situation. It involves oral production
and interaction such as fluency, accuracy, coherence in communicating a message to
your listener. It is a skill that requires excellent communication skills, enthusiasm and
the ability to engage with an audience in order to pass a message. Speaking involves
passing a message to your listener(s). The message of the speaker is passed in form of
a presentation to listener(s), which can be a person, a small group of people or larger
audience at a national conference or event. The sole objective of possessing good
speaking skills is for the immediate comprehension of your message by your
listener(s).

Four important skills required to become a good speaker.

1. FLUENCY. Fluency is about how comfortable and confident you are in
speaking English. If you can speak for an extended period of time, that is an
indicator of strong fluency. It is also about showing a clear connection between
 each point that you are trying to make. This skill means that the listener can
follow what you are saying and does not get lost.

2. VOCABULARY. Of course, if you do not have the words to say what you
want to say, then you cannot say it. Being a good speaker means constantly
growing your vocabulary. The more interesting words you know, the stronger
your speaking skills. The best way to grow your vocabulary is to read in English
and make a note of any new words that you encounter in a vocabulary
notebook.

3. GRAMMAR. Grammar does matter and the fewer mistakes you make, the
better your speaking skill will be. However, do not worry about making
mistakes either. A good speaker does not have to use perfect grammar.
Certainly, though, it is a good idea to make sure that you have mastered the
major tenses.

4. PRONUNCIATION. Pronunciation is a complex area, with a lot of sub-skills

that can be practiced. The basic rule of thumb is that an average speaker can
speak and be understood. A skilled speaker can use the sub-skills of
pronunciation to emphasize and make the communicative effect of their speech
more interesting. The sub-skills of pronunciation include: word and sentence
stress, intonation, rhythm and the use of the individual sounds of a language. A
good way to practice your pronunciation is to copy. Simply, listen to how
someone with good pronunciation speaks and try to imitate them as closely as
possible.
Importance of Speaking Skills
 It allows us to form connections, influence decisions, and motivate change.
 It allows us to inform people through our message.
 It helps us to motivate people.
 It helps us to win over people.

Ways of improving on speaking skills

a. Listen attentively to natives speakers.
b. Find native speaker to talk to.
c. Read books aloud.
d. Expand your vocabulary.
e. Work on your confidence
f. Work on your pronunciation and diction.
g. Talk with yourself in the mirror.
h. Use language learning apps.

READING SKILLS
Reading is defined as the meaningful interpretation of printed verbal symbols. At the
tertiary level, students need to acquire some essential faster reading techniques. The
techniques include:
 Speed reading
 Scanning
 Skimming

A. SPEED READING
Speed reading involves the ability to read a certain amount of material within a short
time and still understand what one has read. Speed reading involves eye movement
and flexibility.

Eye movement is one of the very useful techniques that facilitate reading speed.
Research has shown that a fast reader makes a fewer eye movement than a slower
reader. The characteristic of a fast reader therefore is his ability to chunk a text into
meaningful planning of sense groups, each taken in by one fixation of his eyes. Such
sense groups are more easily tend into coherent messages which make reading and
understanding faster. Word by word reading, or the taking-in of senseless chunks at a
time, on the other hand, impedes reading speed and understanding.

Flexibility is another important characteristic of a good reading skill. This means

marching reading speed with reading purpose. If your purpose is to study and
understand a text thoroughly in order to interpret and make a critical analysis and
evaluation of its content, you certainly have to read it fairly slowly. Studies have
shown that study reading speeds range from 60 to 3000 words per minute, depending
on the complexity of the text and the background knowledge of the reader. If a
reader’s purpose is to grasp the main points or search for specific information in a
text, he may read faster covering 3000 and 8000 words per minute.
To acquire the skill of speed reading, you have to know how long you have taken to
read a given text as well as the number of words that is contained in the text. To know
the number of words you read per minute, calculate thus:

Your reading speed =

Number of words in a text X Number of seconds in a minute
Number of seconds taken to read the text

Let assume you are given a text of 2000 words and you took 10 minutes to read it.
This means that your reading speed in words per minute is:

2000∕480 X 60/1 = 250 words per minute (wpm)

The optimum reading skill of an efficient reader is 600 words per minute. That is 10
words per second. However, if you can develop an average reading speed of 300 to
400 words per minute that will be meaningful. If your reading speed is a mere 125 to
130 per minute, then you have the problem of reading defect.

Importance of Faster Reading

i. It helps the student to cover more grounds.
ii. It reduces reading time, thus creating more time for recreational activities of the
student, which will help him/her to be healthier and happier.

Barriers to Speed Reading (Reading Defects)

Since every student desires to acquire fast reading technique in order to understand
the text, he has to get rid of any barrier to his goal. The barriers are as follows:
 Subvocalization: this is a mark of poor reading habit where the reader forms
the sounds of the words he is reading with lips and murmurs the words in the
hearing of the person(s) next to you. It affects the reader’s reading speed and
understanding.

 Finger-pointing: this means pointing at words with finger or any object when
you are reading. This habit makes you read word by word which a sure way to
slow reading and understanding.
  Regression: this means allowing your eyes to move backwards over what you
have just read instead of reading forward. Regression is a mark of laziness or
lack of concentration. Even if you think you have not really understood a
particular bit of what you have read very well, you are advised to read on. This
is because experience has shown that a missed idea could be deduced from
what follow, as most good writers repeat their ideas in various forms.

 Head movement: poor readers instead of moving their eyes along the line also
move head from one side of the page to the other, making reading very
laborious. The eye muscles are very well equipped to move to and fro the
reading passage in an orderly manner. So, it is not necessary to move head
while reading.

 Constant/Unnecessary use of dictionary: as a prospective good reader, you

should avoid the habit of interrupting your reading each time you come across
unfamiliar word by trying to look it up in the dictionary. It is clear that if you
do this, you will break the trend of your thought and slow down your reading
speed.

B. SCANNING
Scanning, sometimes refer to as search reading, is a reading technique which means
glancing rapidly through a text, diagram, table or graph in order to:
 search for a specific information;
 find out if a text is suitable for a given purpose;
 select what you want to read from a book, newspaper, magazine or report;
 find the meaning of a word in a dictionary or encyclopaedia, find where a
word can be found in a book, from an index, or the position in a map or atlas.

C. SKIMMING
This is also glancing rapidly through a text to get a broad understanding of the main
point in a passage. It involves a thorough reading of an introductory paragraph and
subsequent reading of the topic sentence of every paragraph in a passage. In skimming
exercises, you are required to:
 identify the main ideas or points that are discussed in a text;
 give a suitable title to a passage;
 see how the author organizes his text;
  get a gist or brief summary of what the text is all about.

Writing skills
Writing skill is a very important means in communication. Good writing skill allows
you to communicate your message with clarity and ease to a far larger audience than
through face-to-face or telephone conversations. In everyday life, we engage in
writing in response to one demand or the other. As a university student, irrespective of
your discipline, you will often be requested to engage in variety of writing tasks.

Importance of Writing Skill

1. Writing skill gives you the ability to explain yourself.
2. It serves as a record for the future.
3. It improves one’s communication skills.
4. It improves focus and connects with you.
5. It increases your knowledge, creativity and imagination.